THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 18, 1995 TAG: 9510180028
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LAWRENCE MADDRY
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
THE FLOWERS HAD been vased in the bedroom of the old pilot's home on 25th Street in Virginia Beach. He could see them from where he lay between the sheets in his fresh pajamas, hair damp and neatly combed.
Lilies, yellow roses and chrysanthemums in a tall vase. The card accompanying the flowers was simply stated: ``Thanks for bringing us home.''
Half a century earlier, he had piloted their B-24 Liberator bomber named ``Our Baby.'' Like most of those World War II bombers, it had a painting on the nose. A saucy pink cherub with drooping diapers exposing its bottom, looking back over its shoulder.
The bomber's crew members now have grandchildren who look like that. Graying men in their 70s, they had gathered in Virginia Beach last week for a reunion - their first in more than 50 years. They reunited around Crock.
To a man, they believe that Kerry Crockett - a jaunty young man with uncommon handsomeness who looked like a movie star in his flight jacket - was ``the best damned pilot to fly a B-24 in World War II.''
The old fly boys had come from across the country to see him. From Texas, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, Massachusetts, Louisiana. And one from as far as London.
Kerry Crockett, still handsome with clear hazel eyes and dark wavy hair, welcomed the men on their daily visits to his home. Weakened by Parkinson's Disease, he tires easily, but he would say a word or two until he would have to lie back on the pillow. Then he'd smile, wink or lift a hand to show that he understood their jokes and stories. Stories from a time when the only blooms around them were the blossoms of black smoke exploding in the clouds over Nazi Germany. Tales from a time when Crock's steady hand was on the stick and they came home on a wing and a prayer.
Home was Old Buckenham Field in Attleborough, England. The year was 1944. The crew flew 35 missions over France and Germany and didn't lose a crew member. But they took lots of hits while flying in formation as part of the 453rd Bomb Group, 8th Air Force.
On their sixth run over the Harburg Oil Refineries in Germany, they got 18 holes from shrapnel that had penetrated the aircraft. ``The tiny fragments of flak sounded like sand hitting the plane,'' recalled Bill Patman, the bombardier.
The missions they flew are documented in a curious way. A small wooden box in navigator George Gregory's hands was opened. Out spilled 35 tags attached to metal pins. The pins were removed to arm the bombs in the B-24's bomb bay. On each tag Gregory had penned comments on the mission.
A typical entry: ``No. 9. 8/16/44 - Dessau, Germany; Junkers plant . . . target well hit; heavy flak.''
Once, they landed with a live bomb in the bay. Nobody had the courage to go down and put the pin back in, they said.
It was gruesome up there at 25,000 feet, flying in formation with planes ahead and above you exploding in the air, with oxygen masks and body parts tumbling past the window.
After the missions, they were given grapefruit juice, hard candy and rations of whiskey. Plenty of drinking at the officers' club. If a man got drunk, he was hoisted from his chair, his shoe bottoms were painted black and then he was turned upside down and raised so the shoe impressions would darken the white ceiling.
``In time, the ceiling was nothing but a jumble of shoe prints, as though everyone had walked across it upside down,'' co-pilot Joe Sonnenreich said, laughing. He wore a ball cap emblazoned with a likeness of the old B-24.
Sometimes the old airmen almost shook the walls with their loud laughter. Navigator Gregory said that Crock - who later owned several Virginia Beach theaters - had only one flaw as a pilot. The flaw, he said, was Crock's Virginia accent.
``He was on the radio telling an air controller that his altimeter was `oot' and the man kept asking him to `say again,' '' Gregory recalled. ``Finally our co-pilot grabbed the mike and said, `Our altimeter's OUT, dammit!' ''
Crock flew the B-24 like he was playing a Stradivarius. A real maestro, they said. They remembered the mission when their four-engine plane landed with a blown tire, recalling how he eased it down to the runway, touching first with the good rear wheel, then the nose wheel and the blown tire last. ``Took great skill,'' recalled Donald Whittaker, the radio operator.
Several of the men thought their most dangerous mission was one on which they didn't carry bombs.
``We were selected as a weather plane during the Battle of the Bulge,'' gunner Robert Jacobs said. The Allies desperately needed to get planes aloft, but airfields were covered with snow and ice. They sent Our Baby up to look around, test the weather.
``When we returned, Crock radioed the tower and asked which runway to use,'' co-pilot Sonnenreich remembered. ``And the voice at the other end said, `Take your pick,' because we were the only plane aloft that day.
``Extremely poor visibility. As we came down, the tower said, `Fly your flares.' And Crock replied, `We are flying flares!' The weather was that bad. Ice all over the runway. But Crock brought her down smooth as silk, though it was like a sleigh ride for a few minutes afterward.''
Ann Crockett, the pilot's wife, served her visiting guests sandwiches as they talked and talked about the old days.
Crock listened to the stories while flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, his glistening eyes turning toward the one with the best yarn when they all shouted at the same time.
``This means so much to him,'' his wife said. ``I'd kiss every one of those old codgers . . . if I hadn't already.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
HUY NGUYEN/Staff
His old flying mates gather around the bed of Kerry Crockett in his
Virginia Beach home. Crockett suffers from Parkinson's Disease.
by CNB